"This barbaric terrorist organization": Orientalism and Barack Obama's language on ISIS/ Ben Fermor
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TextPublication details: 2021Subject(s): Online resources:
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Critical Studies on Terrorism: Vol 14, No 3, September 2021, pp. 312-334 (112)Summary: This article explores US foreign policy discourse surrounding the rise of ISIS, from 2014 to 2016. Specifically, it asks how Obama constructed ISIS as a threatening Other at this time. This research traces the formation of US foreign policy narratives and exploring how this drew from existing discourses and older Orientalist tropes. This paper shows how Obama modified his language to elevate the level of the threat in official discourse by drawing upon longstanding racialised and Orientalist archives of knowledge, effectively resituating the terrorist Other within a more markedly Orientalist discourse. Obama made possible an approach to intervention that prioritised air power, targeted assassinations and international cooperation to defend the "civilised" world. This had the effect of stigmatising Muslim communities who were left occupying a discursive space between the civilised West and the barbaric ISIS.
| Item type | Current library | Call number | Copy number | Status | Date due | Barcode | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Journal Article | Mindef Library & Info Centre Journals | TERRORISM (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | 1 | Not for loan | 66462.1001 |
This article explores US foreign policy discourse surrounding the rise of ISIS, from 2014 to 2016. Specifically, it asks how Obama constructed ISIS as a threatening Other at this time. This research traces the formation of US foreign policy narratives and exploring how this drew from existing discourses and older Orientalist tropes. This paper shows how Obama modified his language to elevate the level of the threat in official discourse by drawing upon longstanding racialised and Orientalist archives of knowledge, effectively resituating the terrorist Other within a more markedly Orientalist discourse. Obama made possible an approach to intervention that prioritised air power, targeted assassinations and international cooperation to defend the "civilised" world. This had the effect of stigmatising Muslim communities who were left occupying a discursive space between the civilised West and the barbaric ISIS.
TERRORISM
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